stevecolefandomcom-20200213-history
General Loki
Biography .]] General Loki is a major antagonist in the Astrosaurs series, and is the first recurring villain. Captain Teggs, Arx, Gipsy and Iggy have encountered him four times, in Riddle Of The Raptors, The Space Ghosts, The Claws Of Christmas, and The Dreams of Dread, his most recent appearance to date. He is a particularly fierce and dogged opponent of both Captain Teggs and the DSS, and seems to harbor a personal grudge against the stegosaurus. Loki is easy to recognize because he always wears a black eye patch and has scars from past battles covering his body, so he sometimes uses disguises to hide his true identity. He is one of the velociraptor generals and has led them on many military campaigns, and is also a raptor of some importance back home on Raptos and is a personal favourite minon of the Raptor Royal, the planet's monarch. Like other raptors, Loki thrives on bloodshed and is also notably ruthless and cunning, and is apparently skilled at breaking out of prison (he has done it twice). He is larger and smarter than most of the other raptors in the Jurassic Quadrant and, uniquely, does not have a rasping accent. Loki often uses strange, alien technology in his schemes. Loki is very arrogant and self-possessed, and likes to talk endlessly about various titles bestowed on him by his master. He also does not seem to value or care for his raptor servants in any way and is happy to sacrifice them to benefit himself. His personality can switch between cool and calm or raving, psychotic insanity. Riddle of the Raptors During his first appearance in Riddle Of The Raptors, Loki and many of his warriors attacked the Sauropod and kidnapped Hank and Crank, two Stegoceras athletes. Before he returned them on Planet Sixty for a ransom (gold, a satellite monitor, and some moss) he had his doctors hide explosives in their heads. The bombs were set to go off when they headbutted each other during the Great Dinosaur Games. After his plan was ruined, he tried to blow up Teggs and Gipsy himself before The Sauropod intervened and opened fire on him, blasting his ship out of orbit. His ship was then forced to crash land on Planet Sixty, where he vowed his revenge on Teggs after a run-in with some T. rexes, and he had to sacrifice his crew to them in order to leave. The Space Ghosts Then, five books later, in The Space Ghosts, he tried to use his supply of dispium and mysterious blue marbles to create an army of ghostly raptors that could turn invisible and then instantly visible at the blink of an eye. To do this, he landed on Creepus and used a workforce of raptor miners to gather the necessary materials, setting a trap for any intruders and burying an abandoned kentrosaurus ship in the sand, not to mention using a monster named the Kraggle-Scruncher as a guard to keep the kentrosaurus miners themselves, now ghosts, away. But, as he escaped Creepus in a raptor death ship, he was shot down by Shanta and his diplodocus miners while his raptor soldiers were defeated by Spink's own workers.Plod trapped Loki under her foot as he fled the scene and he was safely locked away in jail for a time. The Claws of Christmas Finally, six books later, in The Claws Of Christmas, he escaped from space prison, landed on Exmus, kidnapped Papa Claws, took his place, and planned to hide an army of raptors in Christmas presents using Papa Claws's minaturization technology to take the Vegetarian Sector by surprise. His activities on Exmus were revealed when he sent another raptor, Ranpak, on a mission to get Iggy Tooth out of the way once and for all. Teggs and Iggy chased him into space, scattered his battle fleet, and forced him to crash-land on Stinkos. The Dreams of Dread Loki escaped from prison again four books later in The Dreams of Dread, with the help of the Raptor Royal and another kraggle-scruncher. The Sauropod crew was sent after him, but the raptor general trapped them on their own ship and set a pack of dream-creatures on them by using special dream meteors from Raptos. He planned to steal the Sauropod and use it to deposit dream meteors all over the Vegetarian Sector, plaguing its people with hideous living nightmares and leaving it open to a raptor invasion. He used anti-gravity boots and crimson smoke to give himself a spooky appearance and used teleporters to make himself and the dream-creatures appear and disappear, psychologically tormenting Teggs. He later captured the ship's Alarm Pterosaur, threatening to destroy her if the Sauropod crew damaged the engines, but Teggs had had enough of Loki's mind games and physically attacked the evil raptor, and all three vanished. Teggs finally confonted Loki outside on the planet of Mallakar, Loki encased in a battle-spacesuit designed for his kraggle-scruncher. Sprite, who was another of Loki's captives, escaped when the general abducted the alarm pterosaur and signalled to Teggs, telling him to keep Loki busy. The raptor used the spacesuit to try and crush Teggs while he gloated. He pulled out lasers to finish the stegosaurus off, but the dimorphodon and alarm pterosaur dropped rocks on his suit, keeping Loki distracted. Teggs shattered the cockpit, broke the suit's controls and went for Loki. Loki was unfazed and placed frayed wires on Teggs in an attempt to electrocute him. However, back on the Sauropod, the dimorphodon smashed the dream meteor on their ship while the raptor gazed on in horror, allowing Teggs to wriggle free. Loki desperately fiddled with his armoured spacesuit's controls in an attempt to get them to work, but Sprite dropped a rock on the raptor's head and knocked him out. After the incident on Mallakar, the DSS sent Loki back to space prison. Trivia *In Revenge of the FANG, Attila planned to make a dino-droid copy of him, but, due to time and a shortage of necessary materials, decided to use King Albu, another early villain, instead. *General Loki is a member of the species Velociraptor mongoliensis. *Loki and the other raptors typically lack the killing claws that real Velociraptors used to attack their prey in their illustrations in the book. They are described as having them in Riddle of the Raptors, in The Claws of Christmas Loki has a stubby "dew claw" attached to the side of his foot, and their collectors' cards include these special claws. *Loki has orange, scaly skin while real Velociraptors had feathers. Presumably this is as a result of evolution in space over 65 million years. *General Loki has a tendency to rant about his many titles, and is usually interrupted by Teggs before he can finish as a sort of running gag in the series. He mentions different dinosaurs in his speech depending on the book, often referring to encounters with Teggs on different planets. *Loki and all the other raptors have forked tongues, a feature that was eventually added to all carnivorous dinosaurs that appear in the series, no matter what the breed. However, real theropods did not have this kind of tongue so it must be another evolved feature. *There appear to be at least three types of raptor- the orange, striped kind that General Loki commands, a green variation of the previous type, and a third variation (represented by an unnamed raptor that is a member of Spiny Jim's crew and the pair that appear in Terror Underground) that doesn't have any stripes or hide markings at all. However, the three variations could simply be inconsistency on the part of the illustrator, as there is no evidence to support the theory that the plain variety is anything but members of the genus Velociraptor like Loki and his warriors. *General Loki's name has two possible origins. It could be a corruption of the "loci" part of his species name, Velociraptor. However, it is more likely that General Loki is named after the Norse god of mischief, Loki. *In Riddle of the Raptors and The Space Ghosts, General Loki wears various types of black uniforms, but in The Claws of Christmas and The Dreams of Dread, Loki doesn't wear any clothes at all. Category:Astrosaurs Category:Villains Category:Raptors Category:AOTMs Category:Carnivores